Pupil Premium & Catch-Up Funding

The Government believes that the Pupil Premium (PP), which is additional to main school funding, is the best way to address the current underlying inequalities between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and their more advantaged peers by ensuring that funding to tackle disadvantage reaches the students who need it most. For every child eligible for a FSM, the school receives additional money to spend on initiatives aimed at ‘closing the educational gap’ between children from poor and those from more-wealthy backgrounds. In most cases, the PP is allocated to schools and is clearly identifiable. It is for schools to decide how the PP is spent, since we are best placed to put into place the additional provision our students require to accelerate their educational progress.

Rationale

To allocate the PP funding, we work according to the following rationale. All members of staff and Governors accept responsibility for socially disadvantaged students and are committed to meeting their pastoral, social and academic needs, within a caring environment. As with every student in our care, a student who is considered to be socially disadvantaged is valued, respected and entitled to develop their potential, and achieve it, irrespective of need.

Our principles are that:

We seek to ensure that teaching, learning and assessment opportunities meet the needs of all of the students

We seek to ensure that appropriate provision is made for students who belong to vulnerable groups, this includes ensuring that the needs of PP students are adequately assessed and addressed

In making provision for PP students, we recognise that not all students who receive FSM will be socially disadvantaged

We also recognise that not all students who are socially disadvantaged, are registered or qualify for FSM. We reserve the right to allocate the PP funding to support any student or group/s of students the school has legitimately identified as being in need of intervention and support

PP funding will be allocated following a needs analysis which will identify priority students, groups and classes

How many pupils at Beacon High are eligible for the Pupil Premium?

73% of students are eligible for the Pupil Premium

How will the Impact of the Spending of the Pupil Premium be Measured?

To monitor progress on attainment, new measures will be included in the performance tables that will capture the achievement of students covered by the Pupil Premium. At Beacon High, the usual cycle of data collection and the monitoring and tracking of the cohort’s attainment, will be used to inform student progress and enable the early identification of need, support and appropriate intervention.

A Summary of the Main Barriers to Educational Achievement Faced by Eligible Pupils at Beacon High

In-School Barriers:

A. Levels of literacy on entry are low, especially for reading and writing which prevents students from making good progress in KS3

B. Levels of maths mental arithmetic skills on entry in Y7 are lower for pupil premium students than for other pupils, which reduce progress in maths in Y7

C. A high prevalence of social and emotional problems that produce barriers to progress and need to be overcome

External Barriers:

D. Lower levels of engagement with home learning (HW) outside of school

E. Parental barriers to reading, literacy and numeracy to support their child

F. Higher than national average level of safeguarding, SEN, and EAL. PP students are significantly below national expectations on entry to the school

Beacon High Catch-up Premium Statement 2019-2020

The Catch-Up Premium provides schools with an additional £500 for each student who was deemed to be ‘not secondary ready’ in reading and/or mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2.

In 2018-19 funding allocation for Beacon High to support students’ eligible for Catch-Up Premium was: £6268.00.

The school is accountable for how it has used the additional funding to support the achievement of eligible students and the Head teacher reports to the governing body and parents on how effective the interventions have been in achieving its aims.

Objective

The objective at Beacon High is to ensure that these students make the rapid and sustained progress necessary to bridge the gap in progress as compared to their peers. We aim to accelerate the progress of these students by ensuring that their individual needs are met and appropriate and timely interventions are used, when needed.